PS 3535 
.0964 
S7 
1915 
Copy 1 




THE 

SPIRIT OF THE WEST 

A DREAM OF 1915 



COURTNEY RO\A/LAND 



pre: face: by 



the: rev. chas. f. aked, d.d. ll.d. 



PU BL ISHERS 

THE GRIMMETT CO. 

311 BATTERY ST. 
SAN FRA NCISCO 






Copyright, 1915 
By Courtney Rowland 



All rights reserved 



a.if^ 



JAN 18 1915 

©CI,A:i93;i47 



PREFACE 



Brooding over our western world is a sense of destiny. 
Consciously or unconsciously, working through the mind 
of the individual or in the soul of the race, a feeling of 
vastness helps to make us what we are. The future of the 
world is with us. On the Pacific slope our young and 
brawny western civilization makes its last stand as it con- 
fronts the hoary east. Here our western manhood and 
womanhood must needs reach their full height. Here is 
to be produced the consummate flower of human evolution. 

This and more than this, infinitely more, Courtney 
Rowland has perceived. His dream is more than a dream. 
In the deep sense of the word, this is a great prophetic 
utterance, not prophetic only in the narrow meaning of 
"predictive" but prophetic in its passion for spiritual realities 
and in its enthusiasm for human liberty. This dreamer 
has the imagination of a poet, the largeness and power of 
a statesman, and the fervor of a lover. 

The writer brings to his task the equipment of the 
trained historian. Into a few paragraphs he distils the 
wealth of hundreds of volumes. He brings back to us the 
life of Man upon this planet; sketches in bold, strong lines 
the division of the human family into tribes and nations ; 
visualizes for us the migrations of successive centuries. 
He calls up before us the giant forms of empires on their 
way to ruin, and fastens our gaze upon the triumphant 
westward march of the race. It has been written in the 
counsels of the Eternal, he says in efifect, that no eastward 
movement shall ever permanently succeed. Westward, ever 
westward, the conquering peoples march — until they come 
to a halt upon the Pacific coast! 

And then what? 

It is with good reason that Courtney Rowland sets his 
dreamer in San Francisco and brings to the Panama-Pacific 



Exposition of 1915 the Spirit of the West to tell the story 
of the past, expound the meaning of the present, and enforce 
responsibiHty for the future. The City by the Golden Gate, 
which waits for the dawning of the morning upon the High 
Sierras and sees the red evening burn down to the sunset 
wave, facing still the West which is the farthest East, and 
facing, too, the East which once was West, may yet stand 
as the herald of a higher civilization, a richer culture, a 
nobler manhood and womanhood to the world that is to be. 

Rudyard Kipling's lines are well known: 

"West to the Golden Gate, 

Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass. 

And the wildest tales are true, 

And the men bulk big on the old trail, 

And life runs large on the Long Trail, the trail that is 
always new." 

This testimony is true. The blindest bluffs are not 
bluffs at all; the blindest bluffs hold good. The wildest 
tales are true. And men bulk big and life runs large — and 
there is no touch of meanness in our blood. Florence in 
the centuries of her renown gave to the world merchant 
princes, bankers, statesmen, world-rulers, poets, painters, 
children of genius whose place is with the immortals. We 
have all that made Florence great, the flowers and fruits 
of the earth, a sun like that of Italy, air as intoxicating as 
that of the Alps, the living glory which streams upon us 
day and night from the mountains and the seas and the 
skies, and as enterprising, resourceful, and daring a race of 
men and women as may be found today upon the face of 
the earth. 

It is to the people of this efficient and aspiring race that 
the Spirit of the West by the medium of Courtney Rowland 
enforces the lesson of a solemn responsibility and an 
inspiring destiny. 

Chas. F. Aked. 
San Francisco. 



THE 

SPIRIT OF THE A¥E8T 

A DREAM OF 1915 



He was an Armenian by birth, a dealer in precious stones. 
Fortune had led him from the Levant to Alexandria and later 
through most European capitals. In secret journeys to the 
ancestral castles of prospective buyers of special gems he 
had experienced many a rare adventure on roads not trodden 
by the tourist. 

From Paris he had taken a commission to New York and 
then lured by the legends of sapphires in Montana he had 
wandered westward with the rest of the world, gradually be- 
coming permeated with the optimism of this new land 
until the spell of the Pacific anchored him in the western 
metropolis. 

In that wonderful 1915, strange faces, strange tongues 
and strange costumes were met with hourly, but I was 
particularly fascinated by this acquaintance from the land 
of romance. We often met in the evenings, and many a 
pleasant hour I spent listening to the stories of his travels. 
But it had been left to San Francisco to provide him with 
the most wonderful adventure. 

I give the recital as nearly as possible in his own 
words : 

The Armenian's Adventure in San Francisco. 

February, 1915. Between Broadway and Pacific 

Avenue. One of the view points of the world. The 
military park on the left. At one's feet the Exposition build- 



12 The Spirit of the West 

ings gleaming- in the sunlight. Flags fluttering in the breeze. 
A dim clatter of hammers punctuating joyous shouts. The 
city of St. Francis on the tiptoe of expectation. Fair 
Tamalpais smiling across the Golden Gate. White sails 
of newl}^ arrived yachts wafting the craft over the dimpled 
waves. Great European steamships l3'ing at anchor, their 
decks under awnings, soft strains of mingled music breath- 
ing through each veering lull of the ocean zephyrs. A 
cloudless sky above, and the grateful warmth of joyous 
sunshine tempering the magic atmosphere to that delicious 
medium in which it suffices simply to be alive and to breathe. 
A day such as happens now and again in cloudier climes 
and is there remembered as a landmark of a life. A day 
that in this favored land is but one of two or three hundred 
such days in a year and so usual that one presently forgets 
that there were ever any others. 

As I rested, drinking in the delights thus offered, there 
passed near by a clattering calvacade in the costumes of a 
long' past age — Crusaders, Canterbury Pilgrims, and Knights 
of Burgundy. They were going to rehearsal. Benson had 
taken in hand the pageant of San Francisco and was staging 
the events in which the city had its origin — the march of 
mankind to the west. It was a grand idea and promised 
to be one of the greatest attractions of the World's Fair. 
The conception was in full accord with the genius of the 
American Commonwealth. 

Still thinking of this strange procession, I turned 
slowly southwards and strolled toward the hills. In the fore- 
ground were the shimmering whites and yellows of the 
clustering houses with here and there a patch of dark red 
or brown. Beyond were the wooded slopes of Buena Vista 
and the gray green Twin Peaks with their forest covered 
neighbors and then purples and the faint distant blues and 
greys of the Coast Range and the heights of Santa Cruz. 
Presently in Golden Gate Park the bold bluff on my left 



A Dream of 1915 13 

was sharply silhouetted against the sky, the deep green of 
eucalyptus and pine beautifully contrasting with the cerulean 
blue above. Intervening foliage near my seat softened the 
sea breeze and the air inclined to drowsiness. 

As the dramatic incident is the most successful item for 
the stage so the dramatic incidents of history would natur- 
ally present themselves for the pageant. The priest kings 
of Egypt and western Asia, the war chariots of Ramses 
and Sargon. Darius the Mede entering Babylon. Alex- 
ander and his Macedonian phalanx. The triumphal pro- 
cessions of the Roman generals. The last fight in the 
Coliseum. The invasion of England by the Romans, the 
mission of Saint Augustine, the Crusades, the coming of 
the Norsemen to America, Columbus, Balboa and Cabot. 
The landing of the Pilgrims. The Indians. Washington 
and the Republic. 

All these incidents presented themselves trailing away 
into indistinct but multitudinous and relatively recent actions, 
isolated scenes where the supernumeraries were very few, 
tragic items of the march across the continent to the moun- 
tains and the Pacific. Actions with small staging, yet 
marking as much progress as the epoch making events of 
the past. Incidents in such rapid succession that to chronicle 
them as epoch making is to invite a new definition of an 
epoch. They are without perspective. They are all in the 
foreground. 

Musing thus upon the possible lines of the forthcoming 
pageant and seeking for a fitting climax, I became aware of 
someone approaching. Apparently it was a woman, yet 
attired as I had never seen any woman. The costume was 
of no period; it seemed to change as I looked at it. One 
moment I felt I could identify an Assyrian robe but even 
as I looked it changed to a garb of mediaeval Europe and 
then to the flowing robes of a picture of the ideal such as 
has only been seen on the canvas of an inspired artist. 



14 The Spirit of the West 

The movements of the stranger were slow and stately 
giving an impression of superb beauty and grace. Was 
it man or woman? So many strangers thronged the city 
that an unusual costume excited no surprise; but there was 
something more in the present case. 

Whilst I was wondering, the figure halted in front of 
my seat and smiling sweetly said, "You are thinking of the 
pageant and the meaning of the Fair?" 

I could not deny that my thoughts were wandering in 
that direction. 

"Would you wish to know the meaning?" said the 
stranger. 

"If there is a meaning, I should indeed like to know 
it. May I enquire your name?" 

"They call me the Spirit of the West. I look and lead 
westward ever. I have come far; very far. I walk always 
near those who march westward. 

Those that look sunward, and with faces golden 
Speak to each other softly of hope. 
It is not given to everyone to know the full meaning of 
these things. That is only revealed day by day. To all 
who follow the setting sun it is given to learn a little, but 
to those who can visualize the panorama of the ages much 
more is shown." 

"How can this be done?" said I. "Have you a time 
machine such as was pictured by H. G. Wells?" 

The stranger smiled sweetly. 

"That was a fanciful idea and did well enough for the 
purpose, but the facts of the Universe are far better and 
more accurate." 

"How so?" I asked. 

"Listen ! No sound or action is ever lost. Every 
spoken word, every sound, every action since the world 
emerged from chaos can still be overtaken in the distant 
ether. 



A Dream of 1915 15 

"When you expose a sensitive plate in a camera it 
arrests rays from the object or scene in front and you 
have the picture recorded for all time. Had you not inter- 
cepted the rays at that moment they would none the less 
have been there and projected around with precisely the 
same force. Those rays pass on through the ether with the 
rapidity of light and are therefore always in the light and 
can at any moment be intercepted, provided — yes, provided 
you can move with greater rapidity than light and overtake 
them. Each impression is there for one moment and each 
moment there is a fresh impression. The impression you 
catch on your plate or film is just the impression of that 
moment and no other. The impressions speed on but they 
are not lost. They still exist. Nothing is lost." 

"But," said I, "for all practical purposes they are lost, 
as they cannot be overtaken. Has it not been truly said that 
we cannot recall the past to live it again?" 

"Not under present limitations. You live under con- 
ditions of three dimensions and of gravity and centrifugal 
force, but think you the Infinite One cannot create conditions 
of four dimensions or even of five or six? Nothing is 
impossible. Thought travels faster than light. Every event 
that ever happened and every sound ever made can be seen 
or heard again. These are God's witnesses. He can call 
them when He wills." 

"And you, Spirit of the West, as you say you are, can 
you overtake sounds that have ceased and events long gone 
before?" 

"To some extent I can, and to some extent I can reveal 
them to favored individuals." 

Make me a favored individual. 

"You are very bold," replied the spirit. "Are you fit for 
the ordeal?" 

"In America we dare anything, attempt anything," I 



16 The Spirit of the West 

replied. "In the vocabulary of the American there is no 
such word as impossible." 

My visitor smiled again, a sweet ineffable smile, and 
beckoned to me gently. Then a strange thing happened. 
My feet seemed to leave the ground and I felt myself float- 
ing in the air. Surrounding objects seemed to recede as 
when one ascends rapidly in the car of a balloon. A faint 
blue haze spread over the view and semi-consciousness 
ensued. 

Presently I found myself at a great height. At one 
moment it seemed that I was seated on a mountain and 
then as if I were suspended over the earth. My attention 
was arrested by stupendous events transpiring below. 
Hordes of brown-skinned men and women were movinar in 
every direction. The land was strange to me. Agricultural 
operations were in progress with primitive implements. 
The labor was very severe but the muscular strength of 
the individual was far beyond anything within my experi- 
ence. As they worked, some ferocious wild animals intruded. 
A few of the men rushed upon the beasts, some with clubs 
and some only with their hands. The latter engaged in 
individual combat with beasts, wrenching the jaws of lions 
apart, seizing horned beasts by their horns and twisting their 
necks, taking panthers by the throat and forcing their heads 
back until their spines were dislocated. 

Long mounds of earth were being formed into inclined 
planes against buildings in course of erection and huge 
blocks of stone forced up on rollers and lifted into their 
place with simple levers. As I wondered, my hand was 
gently touched and I recognized my guide, the Spirit of 
the West, smiling at my amazement. 

"In thought you are in eastern Africa, but in fact, untold 
billions of miles from the earth. The rays which we have 
intercepted" said the spirit "were projected from eastern 
Africa in bygone ages. The events you are looking upon 



A Dream of 1915 17 

actually happened many thousands of years ago. These 
are the early days of the earliest historical race. The people 
you see are the near descendants of the primitive men and 
women who battled for existence with dinosaurs and other 
prehistoric monsters. In that long fight for the supremacy 
of the earth, human beings developed muscular strength which 
is inconceivable in these days. Had they not done so there 
would have been no human race. Gradually as they 
observed the operation of simple mechanical laws, the advan- 
tage of the lever, the range of the missile, they began to 
prevail by cunning. And age by age as cunning increased, 
brute force fell into disuse until we have the modern 
weakling with the modern rifle. 

"The scenes before us took place in the dawn of agricul- 
ture and building." 

As I watched, the same race persisted, but the individuals 
appeared to change ; their implements improved and results 
accrued more rapidly. There were constant periods of 
leisure, of reflection and simple enjoyment. 

"We are journeying with lightning speed tovv^ard the 
earth. The panorama of the ages is apparently passing 
before us. Actually we are passing in front of it. Your 
earth leaves its trail of events as a spider leaves her silken 
thread. The thread is stationary ; the spider moves away 
from it. So the earth moves on but actions and words 
remain. Had we gone further back into infinite space you 
would have seen earlier ages ; hairy men and women living 
in trees and caves, in constant fear of the huge beasts ; and 
further back, the days before the advent of man. The 
record is there. Nothing is lost, matter alone changes." 

During these remarks I had noticed that the people were 
moving in mass in a northeasterly direction, whilst some, 
like a smaller branch, but finer, moved northward and some- 
what westward. The relative position of our observation 
was constant. My interest was redoubled, and my guide 



18 The Spirit of the West 

continued, "Everywhere in northeastern Africa and western 
Asia when Semitic ruins are unearthed, they are found to 
be superimposed upon the remains of an earher civilization. 
In the legends of the past, the mythology of the great races, 
this is poetically chronicled. Mankind is referred to in a 
beautiful story of a male and female living happily in a 
garden on a strictly fruitarian diet. This pair had an 
eldest son who followed the habits of his parents and 
adopted a diet of grain and fruit. Amongst the ancients it 
was a favorite allegorical custom to use eponyms, that is 
to speak of a race or tribe as an individual, just as to-day 
we personify the British by John Bull and the Americans by 
Uncle Sam. 

"Were printed and written records to become extinct 
and legend alone survive, one could easily imagine, some 
thousands of years hence, the tradition passing down of two 
men instead of two nations until the little children of your 
country pictured a solitary couple — Sam and his wife 
Columbia — as the parents of all Americans. It would make a 
beautiful story, sufficient for many purposes, but for scientific 
study would require elucidation. The story would not be 
spoilt by elucidation, and poetically regarded would yet be 
quite true. Poetry is not spoilt by science. Poetry and 
science are twin sisters. 

"Thus it happens that this earliest historical race is 
spoken of as the eldest son. Later, a second race appeared, 
feeding mostly on meats, and that race is spoken of as the 
second son." 

As I looked and listened and wondered, the fields became 
green and then golden and were reaped. Richly garbed 
officials moved to and fro directing the crowds of workers. 
Ox carts of ancient design lumbered along filled with the 
fruits of the field. Massive buildings appeared and a great 
placid river flowing northward. Then processions of white 
robed priests and faint sounds of music and chanting. 



A Dream of 1915 19 

Season followed season in dreamy succession as one genera- 
tion succeeded another, the face of the land ever changing 
as civilization advanced. 

"This is prehistoric Egypt," said my guide. "You have 
watched a thousand years go by. We pass on. Here is 
southern Arabia and we see the main part of the same 
race spreading itself eastward and northward. Retaining 
their old customs of agriculture they reach the Hindoo 
Koosh mountains and there meet the second and later race 
engaged in pastoral pursuits with sheep and goats and 
cattle. The agriculturalists plough the soil and grow grain, 
but the people of the second race resent this method of 
life, wishing their flocks and herds to roam everywhere. 
They are powerful mountaineers and ride horseback. They 
are overbearing and turn their herds into cultivated ground 
and so a quarrel begins. The priests of the two races dis- 
agree, one claiming that the gods are more pleased with 
oblations of flesh and blood than of fruit, the other claim- 
ing the preference for the harvest festival and thanks- 
giving and pointing to their brilliant civilization as evidence 
of the favor of the gods." 

As my guide explained these events they unrolled them- 
selves before me in animated pictures. Groups succeeded 
groups in changing conditions. These were fresh generations 
developing. The vexed question grew in intensity, the 
turmoil increasing. Here and there blows were exchanged 
and soon the encounter became general. The herdsmen 
were confident in their greater stature and strength, but 
they had not sufficiently regarded the alarming numbers and 
organization of the older race. A fearful conflict ensued 
and utimately the herdsmen were driven over the mountains 
to the north. They were overwhelmingly defeated and dis- 
appeared from history for several thousand years. So crush- 
ing was the defeat that they might be said to have been 
wiped out, although great numbers escaped with their 



20 The Spirit of the West 

cattle. The older race, being peaceably inclined, did not 
follow up the victory by pursuit but turned eastward and 
calmly continued its agricultural career. 

"This greatest of battles," said my guide," has come 
down to you in the form of a story of two brothers fighting 
and the elder killing the younger. Perhaps you have 
heard it!" 

I thought of Cain and Abel and wondered still more. 

"The younger race — the second son — was referred to 
occasionally as dwelling in Cimmerian darkness. Later in 
history faint glimpses appear of Scythians moving westward, 
and long afterwards the second race descends once more 
from the gulf of Bothnia and swarms over Europe as 
Goths, V'isigoths and Ostrogoths, changing the course of 
the world. 

"The first race — the elder brother — spread eastward to 
the shores of the Pacific ocean. There we leave them. A 
fairer race is emerging — the third brother." 

And as I watched, the scenes pieced in with more familiar 
knowledge. There was the great plain of Chaldea being 
redeemed by irrigation ; Babylon rising on the banks of the 
Euphrates. The seven tiered ziggurats blazing in gold, 
silver and colors, where the priests watched the stars. The 
inflated skins floating down the river bearing the mules 
for the return journey up stream, and the huge rafts laden 
with products of Armenia to supply the demands of the 
great city. Then appeared Assyria with its military gran- 
deur, hordes of slaves, triumphal processions, splendor and 
untold cruelty everywhere. In spite of all hindrances the 
patient people surviving and toiling onward. 

A tribe of shepherds from Ur, journeying westward, 
across the northern part of Assyria, settles on the eastern 
coast of the Mediterranean sea; I recognize the fore- 
fathers of the virile Jewish nation. They journey to 
Egypt. I see the Exodus and their return to Palestine. 



A Dream of 1915 21 

They increase in numbers, and the Philistines — or Phoeni- 
cians, as we know them — are forced by the pressure of 
population over the mountains to the narrow but fertile 
seaboard of the Levant. Tyre and Sidon become world 
cities facing the setting sun. The pressure on their hinter- 
land increasing, the citizens colonize, and Carthage rises to 
eminence. From thence an expedition crosses to Marseilles. 
Its members navigate the Rhone as far as possible, then cross 
France to the upper waters of the Seine and so float down 
to Havre and with a fair wind from the south reach the 
Cassiterides and discover tin. It was the bronze age and 
tin was as eagerly sought as was gold in later years. 

For centuries the descendants of these hardy merchants 
went to and fro by the same route bearing the rich spoil to 
the empires of western Asia and the Mediterranean. They 
took their wives to England and also intermarrying with 
the earlier British settlers colonized the southwestern portion 
of the island, instilling into the blood of their children the 
venturesome spirit which in after years drove them across 
the Atlantic ocean. 

Thus, as we sped toward the earth and the present day, 
the panorama of the ages unrolled before me. Persia, Media, 
Parthia, each rising to empire, and further west the early 
blossoming of Greece and Byzantium. The great Hittite 
kingdom establishing itself over Asia Minor. 

Swaying like waves of the sea, first eastward and then 
westward, the great third race of men and v/omen formed 
fresh combinations. Hundreds of years passed, generation 
succeeded generation, but ever the gain was westward. Every 
concjuest of the east was ultimately futile. The east lay 
down and let the western wave pass over it. Then rising 
again it engulfed the invader and started a fresh wave 
westward as a rising tide appears to recede and then 
gathering up the receding waters makes a still higher wave 
and marks a further advance. 



22 The Spirit of the West 

"Do you understand?" said a soft voice beside me. 

So absorbed had I become in this vast spectacle that 
I had almost forgotten my guide and the strange circum- 
stances of the day. 

"Tell me the meaning." I eagerly replied. 

"This is the meaning. You are all of one nation and 
of one kindred. Those earliest dwellers on your earth 
were rightly spoken of as brothers. Battles and wars 
rarely have more to do with real history than the petty 
squabbles of a normal household have to do with the real 
life of the family. Add together all the years spent in w^ar 
and in the greater residue you have the real life of the 
people. The years of the building of a great epoch are 
not dramatic periods, just as the years of the building of 
a fortune are but little noted. When the results are wasted 
by the warrior and the spendthrift, people are dazzled. 
They record the incident of the pyrotechnic display and 
forget the lives devoted to chemical research and the patient 
work of the miner and agriculturalist which made the dis- 
play possible. The man who applies the match is applauded; 
the others are forgotten. 

"On the crest of a wave in the rising tide you see a 
fish or a piece of wreckage. You forget the tide in your 
interest in the object on the crest of the wave. That object 
is like the prominent warrior. He is the creature of the 
moment illuminated by the sunshine on the crest of the 
wave ; but the wave was fashioned far out at sea and im- 
pelled by forces unknown to him. His appearance is dram- 
atic; the people with their hopes and fears, struggles and 
sorrows, ever striving, they are the tide, and the wave is the 
battle. It is a mere incident or perhaps an accident. The 
socalled nations which succeeded one another from Chaldea 
to Rome were the same people in different generations, 
different combinations and different conditions of progress, 



A Dream of 1915 23 

modified by thought and environment, later developments 
of great mobility crossing with the more stationary. 

"Thus new ideas were born and new movements made. 
The empires had different names just as the particular 
group happened to be paramount for the moment, but the 
people were no more altered by that circumstance than 
would the American people be by a change of the seat of 
government from Washington to Carson City. 

"Every change caused modifications, or perhaps was the 
result of modification, environment and generation, just as 
a party which wins no support today will under new 
conditions come to power through the new electorate of the 
grandchildren of the present generation and millions of 
immigrants. Yet the nation is the same; the same human 
wave rolls on. 

"The really important history of the world, the history 
that matters, is the history of human relations to material 
or spirit, economic and religious history, the march of man 
from the cave dwelling to the cathedral and the capitol, 
from the hardened stick and the flail to the motor plow and 
the modern harvester, from the earth basket to the steam 
shovel, from the walking stick to the airship, from picture 
writing to wireless telegraphy. America has made more of 
such history in fifty years than Asia made in fifty centuries. 

"But this is only progress in so far as its goal is to 
provide leisure for reflection, for thought and for true 
religion — the binding again of man to God or Good. The 
march of humanity from the first dim conception of spirit 
gathered from the cataclysms of nature, the deification of 
the consuming fire of the desert which burnt up the crop 
in seasons when irrigation failed, the deification of the moun- 
tain storm which caused the shepherds to offer sacrifices to 
appease the anger of an imaginary fiend; from the morning 
twilight conception of God as a super-king demanding 
presents and atonements to the glorious light of eventide 



24 The Spirit of the West 

with its new heaven and its new ideal of earth, when 'the 
former shall not be remembered nor come into mind;' this 
also will America accomplish. With giant strides she is 
making anew the human relation to material and out of it 
shall come the new spirit. 

"Can you see it now?" 

"Yes indeed," I responded. "I see one tide from 
northern India to Rome, wave after wave of progress, but 
ever westward." 

The hands of the Spirit of the West moved as if with- 
drawing a curtain. Far away to the north the darkness 
lifted and masses of people of hugh stature emerged. They 
had countless beasts of burden, and wagons and war horses. 

"Look !" said the Spirit. "From this period onward the 
descendants of the second brother rejoin the human tide 
moving westward." 

As I looked, the northern hordes swept down southward 
and westward, Goths, Visigoths and Ostrogoths with their 
kindred, and mingling with the Romans, Etruscans, Greeks, 
Berbers and Iberians, filled the valleys of the Rhine the Elbe 
and the Danube and the lands of France and Spain and 
swarmed into Rome itself. This was the race supposed to have 
been exterminated, returning to the arena after a hundred 
generations to intermingle with the tide of empire, to alter the 
stature and attributes of the western stream, to give it new 
life and vigor for further adventure. It was typical of the 
marriage of the effete European with the daughter of the 
Montana miner. 

Yet another mighty movement from the east followed, 
a still further reinforcement of the western human tide, 
though not so beneficial. It was the advent of the Huns. 
Little Asiatic men and women in countless numbers and 
well organized, indifferent to pain, irresistible as an ava- 
lanche they pressed on the rearguard and forcing through 
like a wedge clove the settlements of Europe until the base 



A Dream of 1915 25 

of the wedge was in the Urals and its apex nearly to Paris. 
Compared to the Gothic impetus it was beneficial as is a 
surgical operation in comparison with a course of strenuous 
athletics and outdoor life. For more than two centuries 
the pressure of this force was sustained and then, ceasing 
to be recruited from Asia, it fell back and was absorbed. 
But its mark remained as a permanent factor to be further 
impressed later on by a fresh incursion from the east. 

The scene became blurred as the Dark Ages passed in 
review. But in Spain the Moors could be seen like a 
rainbow of hope laying the foimdation of science for the 
work of the western world to follow. 

The rays of a setting sun gleamed on western Europe, 
and from Iceland to Morocco, from the islands and from the 
mainland, the westward moving host gazed over the dark 
waters of the Atlantic. 

"And I awakened in them desire and longing," said the 
Spirit of the West, "and they wondered what was beyond 
the v/aters ; and as rank after rank filled up and the popu- 
lation thickened on the Atlantic seaboard the desire increased. 
Watch the hardy seamen from island to island feeling their 
way to Greenland and Labrador. See ! they return ; the 
time is not yet. Now behold four centuries later." 

Suddenly I was alone again and seemed to be high above 
the Ba}^ of Biscay. Some way in front my companion was 
poised in mid air beckoning with both hands to the crowds 
which gazed longingly over the ocean. Their enthusiasm 
increased and there was much reasoning amongst the people. 
From one port and another small but sturdy ships put out. 
Fair winds followed them at first, but midway on the mighty 
ocean storms arose. Some of the ships were lost. On others 
there were apparently disagreements, but when it seemed 
that they would have turned back discouraged, the Spirit 
of the West beckoned smiling-ly, and so. some reaching one 



26 The Spirit of the West 

point and some another, the whole coast of the New World 
gradually became known. 

The returning- ships spread the news, and more, ever 
more, sailed westward, until from Patagonia to Bafifin Bay 
the peoples of Europe made a footing. But the land was 
not quite desolate, for here also were the footprints of the 
eldest brother and little by little the legends of the long 
lost centuries were gathered. Legends of a vast island 
and chains of islands where now the billows of the Atlantic 
roll, and of other similar links between Peru and Malacca 
and between Korea and Alaska. Possibly before the birth 
of the second brother some descendants of the firstborn — 
a red skinned race — had passed across the north of Africa 
and by way of the Azores and the now sunken lands had 
reached central America and there planted the civilization 
of Ancient Egypt. And possibly after the great parting with 
the second brother in central Asia, other descendants of 
the firstborn had passed eastward and southward far into 
what is now the Antarctic and by a great circle route reached 
Peru. 

Whilst thus meditating, the spirit was once more at my 
side and reading my thoughts, said : "It was never ordained 
for any eastward movement to permanently succeed. Only 
those who follow me can ultimately fashion the future of 
the world. They alone prevail. Fresh waves of men 
and women will sweep you forth westward, westward ever, 
around the path of the sun. I am the Spirit of the West. 
Follow me." 

Then from every shore of the blue Mediterranean, 
from the homes of the descendants of the pirate swarms of 
the North Sea, from central Europe, the Balkans and far 
off Russia, by hundreds and by thousands and by hundreds 
of thousands, I saw men and women crossing the ocean to 
the New World, many seeking liberty of thought, liberty 
of religion, liberty of residence, liberty of action, but the 



A Dream of 1915 27 

greater number seeking improved conditions of life to make 
tiie other things possible. 

I saw these different kindreds intermingHng, with no 
political barriers from one side of the continent to the 
other; well fed, emancipated from serfdon, wild with the 
first taste of liberty, yet with some of the old brutal instincts 
surviving, with mutual congratulations and sympathy 
evolving a very lovable disposition. Here at last were the 
descendants of the same races which had struggled in mortal 
combat in that distant past, the progeny of the three 
brothers ; mostly of the third, less of the second and least 
of the firstborn. Through long generations separated into 
rival factions under kings, forcibly intermingled, then 
estranged again ; separated by mountains and seas, some 
passing to the north some to the south of the obstacles to 
their westward wanderings. Changed in feature, in dialect, 
in manners, by different environments, remingling in kaleid- 
oscopic forms and now at last gathered from all the earth 
in a new land and thrown together, once more to blend in 
lang-uage, in custom and environment, a vast human family 
gathered for the Festival of the World. 

I saw them pressing forward over the Alleghanies, 
across the Mississippi and the wide prairie beyond, and then 
over the great mountains, right and left, north and south, 
widening their lines of march till with one vast front of 
thousands of miles they halted once more on the shores 
of the ocean ; not this time the Atlantic — the ocean of 
mystery, unsailed and uncharted — but the Pacific, the ocean 
traversed every hour of the year by hundreds of vessels, 
its every island charted, its every mood known. 

As the panorama of the ages swept past I seemed to be 
floating over the Rocky mountains and then the Sierras and 
gently yet with lightning swiftness the earth seemed to 
come nearer, and nearer, until I rested suspended over the 



L 



28 The Spirit of the West 

Bay of San Francisco and at my side once more was the 
Spirit of the West. 

''You have seen," said the spirit, "you have seen the 
childhood of the human race, you have seen its growth and 
westward march, my beckoning of the toilers across the 
Atlantic, the mighty rush across the continent, mankind 
as children in a vast new garden, exploring it and claiming 
it, occupying in a hundred years a territory which in earlier 
times would not have been covered in thirty centuries. The 
circle of the earth is complete. Here in this wonderful 
western land problems of civilization await final solution. 
It took five hundred years to even partially blend the Danes 
and Saxons and Normans, and to this day many a pure 
bred Roman treads the hills of Somersetshire whilst Syrian 
girls walk the southwestern shores of England scarcely 
changed in feature since Joshua drove their ancestors over 
the hills of Lebanon. Here in this western land are con- 
gregating Saxons, Danes, Celts, Iberians, Goths, Etruscans, 
Huns, Greeks, descendants of Tartar hordes, descendants 
of all the Semitic races, Jews, Arabs and Moors. It is not 
a nation : it is mankind. Not mankind indiscriminately 
selected, but such of mankind as have felt the inspiration of 
Democracy, the chosen people of the world; of every possible 
differentiation of ancestry and antecedents yet of one spirit, 
the selected of mankind brought together from all the corners 
of the earth for the final consummation of the objects of 
creation. 'San Francisco invites the World.' Proud as that 
invitation sounds it but dimly indicates the profifered destiny 
of the Golden City, peerless in position, the Jewel of the 
West. 

"Unless another glacial epoch or some vast cataclysm 
sweeps civilization from the face of the earth and a 
new dispensation begins, there is no fresh circle of the 
globe to be made. In this western world, in this Pacific 
Empire, is the terminus of the journey. It requires no 



A Dream of 1915 29 

prophetic insight to realize the vast aggregation of human 
beings who will one day people these glorious mountains 
and fertile valleys. The guerdon is offered to this far 
western land, and the eye wanders from Alaska to Panama, 
and from Panama to Peru, tear-dimmed with joy for the 
hope of the ages, the hope of what is to be. 

"The age of superstition is dying; the age of materialism 
will end; you are entering the age of the greatest reverence 
the world has ever known. It is for this western world to 
realize these things. Of its people is required reverence 
for the source of the lavish beauty of the land, reverence 
for the marvelous relations of the hidden powers of nature 
which, as each day unfolds its tale, make the hitherto im- 
possible become easy of accomplishment. They must attain 
to a consciousness, as of old, 'that it is not their power 
nor the might of their hand that hath gotten this wealth,' 
and realize the responsibility which accompanies the gift. 
Never before in all history has such an opportunity been 
offered to any land, never such a glorious destiny made 
possible. Only in reverence for the true, the good, and the 
beautiful can this proffered destiny be grasped. 

"Whether the people will once again ask a king, whether 
they will revert to barbarism and civil war and perish like 
the former nations, or whether true liberty, equality and 
brotherhood will be attained ; whether they will at last under- 
stand the Declaration of Independence, the self-evident fact 
that all men are created equal (that is, have a right to be 
born equal), so self-evident as to be overlooked by most 
people, so overlooked that the evils of the old world are 
already being repeated here with greater intensity, men every 
day being born more and more unequal — one a pauper, 
another a hundred million dollar baby. Whether these 
things will continue, inviting class and caste to a reincarna- 
tion, or whether the people will raise a new standard, create 
a new ideal, making living more important than getting a 



30 The Spirit of the West 

living, wealth and work but a means to an end, the destiny 
of the Pacific Empire is to answer these questions aright. 
Nothing is impossible. 

"You went forth with the world a wilderness before you, 
you leave it a garden behind you. You went forth in 
unconscious infancy, in ignorance and need; you shall 
attain to thoughtful manhood, with wealth, philosophy and 
art for all. Hoping all things, believing all things, welcome 
the message of the Pacific. Ever as of old, 'Faith is the 
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not 
seen.' You have seen in part; in love then believe all 
things possible. All the peoples of the world are gathering 
here. Help them to understand. Addio !" 

My visitor had gone. There was no one in sight. In 
a glory of radiance rarely seen, but once seen reckoned 
worth the waiting of many days, the sun was slowly sinking 
toward the ocean. A pale yellow sky silhouetted the moun- 
tains as they changed from blue to purple and grey. Faint 
flecks of clouds above were taking a roseate tinge, and 
then in a blaze of living light across the waters the glory 
of the Golden Gate was revealed. Twilight lingered, and 
one by one the stars peeped out as I looked once more from 
the heights of the Presidio. Myriads of points of light 
glittered in every direction. San Francisco's welcome to the 
world was ready. Had I entertained an angel unawares? 




/ii^'?«'?v 



